Transcript

00:00:01

>> The technology industry is up in arms over the rollback of rules known as Net Neutrality. I'm Johnathan Webber, the Global Technology Editor for Reuters. The US Federal Communications Commission on Thursday is expected to vote to repeal the rules known as Net Neutrality. These were rules put in place during the Obama administration, and they require Internet service providers to treat all traffic equally.

00:00:23

So your ISP as its known who you get your Internet service from, they can't decide to give say Netflix or faster lane and they give it to Amazon Video. Or they can't decide which websites to connect and which ones they won't, they have to threat everyone equally. Cable companies and the phone companies have vehemently opposed these rules all the way along.

00:00:46

They say that with these kind of rules they have no incentive to invest in their networks. And the opponents of the roll back really fear that this is gonna lead to a very different kind of Internet, where companies that can pay to have their track distributed, will get a big advantage of companies that won't.

00:01:02

Now, the truth as is often the case with these things, it's really somewhere in between. There are definitely legitimate concerns about fair access to the networks. But at the same time, most of the people we have spoken to believe that, certainly in the short run, this is not gonna produce any immediate dramatic changes.

00:01:20

But nonetheless, the opponents of this rollback feel like this is really a landmark moment, that the Internet has to be protected. And that's why people have been protesting today and over the last week or so, at the FCC and elsewhere to make their voices known on this issue.